Information analysis systems and methods that provide capability to quickly and automatically analyze information, characterize information, and/or separate portions of information that are relevant to a particular problem or useful in a particular inquiry from portions that are not relevant or useful are increasingly valuable given the growing number and size of sources of such information. The systems and methods, which can comprise analytics software, can unveil common themes and reveal hidden relationships within the information being analyzed. However, the very large volumes of data often associated with information analysis and the complexity of the algorithms underlying the analytics software can stress, and even overwhelm, standard computer desktop technology, limiting the problem sizes that can be handled effectively. Therefore, a need exists for methods and systems for analyzing information on shared and distributed computing systems.